This archive report was first published on 12 August 2020.
Beirut, Lebanon - August 11, 2020
Lebanon marked a week since its worst-ever peacetime disaster with a mix of grief and rage, as survivors remembered the dead and protesters vowed to bring down the political elite.
The August 4 blast at Beirut port killed 171 people, injured 6,000, and left an estimated 300,000 people temporarily homeless.
Ali Noureddin, who lost his brother Ayman in the blast, joined thousands of people to march solemnly by the wreckage of Beirut port, where his brother had been stationed as a soldier.
"My brother died because of state negligence and corruption," he said, holding a picture of his late brother, who was 27.
Ali dismissed the resignation of Hassan Diab's government as insignificant unless it were followed by the wholesale removal of Lebanon's hereditary political elite.
Protests continued for the fourth consecutive night, as dozens of demonstrators clashed with security forces and tried to break down barriers leading to the parliament in central Beirut.
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France has taken the lead in the international emergency response, organising an aid conference which raised a quarter of a million euros.
President Emmanuel Macron visited blast-ravaged neighbourhoods of Beirut two days after the disaster, adopting a tough tone with Lebanese officials and warning that they needed to strike "a revamped pact with the Lebanese people".
According to the Al-Akhbar daily newspaper, veteran diplomat Nawaf Salam is favoured by Paris, Washington, and Riyadh, three of the key outside power brokers in Lebanon.
Food 'catastrophe' looms ¶
The blast ripped the sides off towering grain silos that shielded part of the city from the shockwave, but the blast spilt thousands of tonnes of grain, vital to the import-dependant country's food security.
On Monday, the head of the World Food Programme, David Beasley, said Lebanon needed all the help it could get because 85 percent of Lebanon's food used to come in through the port.
